


Couldn’t keep it locked away, couldn’t take it to the grave

by Toomanyfandoms99



Series: Supernatural Season 15 Codas [20]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Coda, Death, Episode: s15e18 Despair, Grief, Heaven, Hell, Hope, Introspection, M/M, Post-Episode: s15e18 Despair, Purgatory, The Empty (Supernatural)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:55:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27426061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toomanyfandoms99/pseuds/Toomanyfandoms99
Summary: Dean stares at the wall across the room.  The provisional room that sprouted tentacles and snatched Cas away from him.He buries his head between his knees.  He sniffles into the unforgiving denim, squeezing his watery eyes shut.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Series: Supernatural Season 15 Codas [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1517966
Comments: 30
Kudos: 686





	Couldn’t keep it locked away, couldn’t take it to the grave

**Author's Note:**

> I thought writing out my emotions would help make me feel better, but it didn’t. I’m still posting this since I spent the day on it, though.
> 
> The title was taken from the song “To The Grave” by Bea Miller.
> 
> Despair (noun) - The complete loss or absence of hope.

He doesn’t know how long he cries. The coldness of the floor and the roughness of the concrete wall against his back provide beautiful barricades for his misery. His sandpaper jeans grate on his strained muscles as his knees are pulled up to his chest.

The phone stays facing the ground. It buzzes and buzzes, vibrating and dancing, but Dean doesn’t hear it.

The words play and replay. The speech echoes in digestible spurts, followed by the inky oil monster eating up the person who said them and sucking him into an endless void of guilt-ridden slumber.

Dean can see it now. See it with clarity that would have been obvious to anyone but him. The stares. The tension. The remarks.

Why didn’t he say anything back? He should have.

Cas is gone. Again. For good this time.

Dean doesn’t realize his face is coated in a layer of tears until the faint sound of the bunker door opening and closing registers as a warning sign. He remains where he is, though. Frozen in his position. Grieving.

Why would Cas love someone as fucked up as him?

Cas sees the good in Dean. It’s too much for Dean to comprehend when he bathes in blood.

What did Dean do to make Cas love him? It can’t just be how he cares for people. Dean is simply doing his part, what’s right. Nothing special about that.

“Dean?”

Sam’s voice travels throughout the bunker. Dean does not give an indication of where he is inside the maze. He doesn’t even have the strength to swipe away his streaming tears; what would possibly give him the strength to call out his brother’s name?

“Hello? Dean?”

The voice grows distant for a moment. Dean exhales out of his mouth, the shakiness coming nowhere close to how he feels inside.

When did Cas fall in love with him? Eleven years of friendship doesn’t mean Dean can claim to understand the heart of an angel. Was it in Heaven? Purgatory? Their first meeting in Hell? Was it love at first sight? First fight? First hug?

“Hey, Dean?” Sam is panicked.

Dean stares at the wall across the room. The provisional room that sprouted tentacles and snatched Cas away from him. 

He buries his head between his knees. He sniffles into the unforgiving denim, squeezing his watery eyes shut.

Dean didn’t cry much. His deep-seated fears prevented him from doing a lot of the things that he’s wanted to try throughout his life. Now that he was at the end, he wished he had defied the odds and done them all. Why not kiss the guys he met in backwater towns after flirting and tripping over barstools? Why hadn’t he tried? 

Maybe then, he wouldn’t be foundering, utterly hopeless. 

Heavy boots get closer. Dean lifts his head away from his knees. His eyes prickle with darkness at the swift neck movement. Stars hang in droves around his blurry vision, fading as the opposite wall sharpens. Dreary. Bleak. Blank.

The tears haven’t stopped. He doesn’t think they ever will. He’s never felt so lost. Before, at least he had Cas.

“Dean,” Sam draws out a sigh in relief as he kneels, filling Dean’s vision, “we thought they had taken you too.”

Dean doesn’t comprehend it. Not really. His voice comes out a wracked whisper. “I wish somebody would.”

Sam analyzes Dean’s face, noticing the tear tracks for the first time. His gaze lingers, mouth pausing mid-question.

“Where’s Cas?” Jack filters in from somewhere around the room. Dean doesn’t care enough to swivel his head to search for Jack’s location.

He doesn’t care about anything right now. 

Sam jumps to conclusions. “Did Cas disappear too?”

Dean presses the heels of his hands against his eyes. His joints ache in protest as the wetness is swiped away from his cheeks. 

His palms slap on the dirty floor. They are both so close, so prying all of a sudden. He can’t take it. He can’t do it. He can’t do this, can’t talk about it.

Dean looks away from them, messily getting to his feet. “I can’t,” he gulps air, parched and emotional to his own ears, “I can’t right now.”

He stumbles like a drunkard out of the room where he watched Cas die. His vision blurs so much as he cries silently that he uses his hands on the walls to guide him to his bedroom.

He barely closes the door before his back is against it. He loses balance and curls in on himself again. 

Dean hiccups and cries on the wooden floor, Cas’s peaceful face swimming in his eyelids.

/

Fatigue must have gotten him to sleep, because Dean wakes lying sideways on his bedroom floor.

Cheek pressed against the wood planks, he stretches his aching joints from their tightly-wound ball. He is layered in dried tears, making it difficult to move his facial muscles.

Light spears across the floor, the tip of a pyramid resting near his chest. He sighs at the celestial sign.

Dean wishes Cas were here. Cas made everything better. He made Dean forget, sometimes, that his life was supposed to be cursed.

And that was the problem, wasn’t it? Cas got to say his peace, confess what he had been hiding inside for over a decade, but not Dean. Not Dean.

Dean wants to tell Cas everything. He wants Cas to know the secrets he never told anyone else. He wants Cas to know about his obsessions and fears and hopes and guilt and anger and love and-

Why was Dean questioning everything before? More than anything, Dean wants to reciprocate. But Cas was gone. He took Death and the Empty with him.

Why did Cas love him, again? Because he cares about people. Believes in them. Never gives up hope.

So why should he give up? Cas wouldn’t want that. 

Dean lets in a long breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth.

He places his hands on the floor. He struggles to a standing position, stretching from sleeping on the floor. 

Before Dean can second guess his decision, he showers, dresses, and greets the next problem.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are appreciated!


End file.
